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The Freedom Riders, The U.S. Army, And Me

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Fifty years ago this past weekend, the Freedom Riders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which included student leaders Diane Nash and John Lewis, decided — along with many other similarly committed young people — that it was time to integrate bus stations in the Southern United States that were hubs of racist segregation.

Monday night, PBS broadcast a historical documentary that chronicled the strategy and decision-making by the leadership of the civil rights movement for racial equality that strategically applied the practices of Mohatma Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience, to the arduous effort to desegregate and eliminate the “Jim Crow” practices of the Southern United States. As the documentary reflected, the young people who chose to ride the buses of freedom that fateful month of May 1961 changed America forever.

SNCC’s decision’s was predicated upon the radical notion that it was time to test the authority of a 1961 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia, that overturned segregation of bus stations, their restaurants and restrooms, which had become glaring Jim Crow symbols of racial segregation throughout the South.

The first bus of Freedom Riders that arrived in Anniston, Alabama on May 14, –Mother’s Day that year — was immediately set upon by an organized assailants wielding chains and pipes, and having driven the occupants to the back of the bus, in a split moment of time, fire bombed the bus, burning most of the exterior, exposing its naked and jagged frame.

“Meanwhile, the Trailways bus arrived in Anniston, Alabama where the driver would not continue until the group sat segregated,” SNCC’s historical records show. “A violent group boarded the bus and beat the African-Americans sitting in the front, causing several injuries until the group was forced to the back of the bus. A mob carrying iron pipes greeted them on arrival in Birmingham, Alabama. Many were battered, knocked unconscious and hospitalized. The group gathered the next day and prepared to head on to Montgomery, but no bus would take them. A mob gathered as they waited in the white waiting room, and finally the group decided to fly back to New Orleans, ending the first ride.”

Although I was only six-years-old when the Anniston bus burning occurred, by the time I was a teenager, I had come to understand its historical importance as a weigh station on America’s long journey toward achieving racial equality and dignity.

Anniston had become notorious for its violent acts of brazen racism and was an embarrassment on a world stage for the Kennedy Administration, who was planning the young president’s first international trip to meet with European heads of state. Indeed, Anniston’s bus burning and vicious attack on unarmed Freedom Riders would bear the heavy burden of ugly racism for many decades to come.

 

The card read something like, “You are not welcome in this establishment.” Of course, it did not say, “You are not welcome in this establishment because you are black,” or because I was associating with a black person, but we knew and understood its ugly message instantly.


 

Not only would Anniston’s bus burning serve as a barometric measure in my life for one of the ugliest incidents of racism in American history, but it would also become my unexpected home on two different occasions during my 15-year Army career.

The first time I enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1974, I was sent to Ft. McClellan, Alabama for the Women’s Army Corps boot camp (I also had my first kiss there with a woman in the laundry room of Charlie Company, 2nd WAC Battalion.) I returned to Anniston in 1986 as a U.S. Army Second Lieutenant to attend officer’s basic course and served four more years at Ft. McClellan, before posting to Hawaii, where I served as a company commander.

During this assignment in Alabama, I bought a house in Anniston which exposed me to homegrown racial prejudice. The most memorably painful incident occurred during a lunch I was sharing with an Army colleague, an African-American woman, who was also a Second Lieutenant. While eating, a white man walked past us and laid a card on the table’s edge and immediately left the restaurant’s premises after his banal act. The card read something like, “You are not welcome in this establishment.”

Of course, it did not say, “You are not welcome in this establishment because you are black,” or because I was associating with a black person, but we knew and understood its ugly message instantly. We quickly left the restaurant and turned the card into Ft. McCllellan’s office of civil rights, hoping they would look into the incident and perhaps put it “off-limits” to base personnel.

Nothing came of our complaint and because our daily lives were otherwise consumed with training and graduating, we moved on. But that moment made me aware that intolerance was alive and well in Anniston, even though the Army and the city talked a good game about acceptance and respect for others. It would not be my last experience of feeling the sting of racism in Anniston and in other American locales, which not only punishes and humiliates African-Americans, but calls on White people to confront its ugly specter or become ashamed because of our complicity with the racists.

Anniston’s notorious history came into stark relief when I was assigned to serve as an escort officer for Brigadier General Sherian Cadoria, the first African-American female general in the military, who was making a return visit to Ft. McClellan in February 1986 in honor of Black History month. A beautifully striking woman, Sherian Cadoria was tough as nails, disciplined, precise, she would prove to be a generous mentor to me through the remainder of my career.

Cadoria, a deeply religious person, grew up as a child of tenant farmers and by the age of ten years, was picking at least 200 pounds of cotton daily. Her mother raised her to be proud, despite whatever humiliations she would sustain as a young African-American girl growing up in Louisiana. Her rise to the rank of General is a classic Horatio Alger American story.

I was thrilled with this assignment and thoroughly prepared for her arrival. This would be at least her fourth return to Ft. McClellan for Brig. Gen. Cadoria and her first as a general staff officer. She had entered the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) officer basic course in 1960, at Ft. McClellan, just months before the violent disruption of the Freedom Riders arrival at the local bus station. She returned for perhaps one of her most challenging assignments to Ft. McClellan in the 1970s when she became its Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) officer, with specific responsibilities to interact with the Anniston community (during her assignments at Ft. McClellan she never lived “locally”–an impossibility she told me that apparently all black officers and soldiers adhered to as well.)

For Cadoria, this assignment must have been a frightening, yet, an empowering one. She later told me that the Army calculated to send her to Ft. McClellan, because of its rancidly racist past. They wanted Cadoria and the powerful symbol of who she was, in Anniston to work on bringing the local community in line with the Army’s goal to advance racial equality in the ranks.

I still think sending Cadoria to Anniston in the 1970s was a rather radical idea, especially for the U.S. Army. They could have not sent anyone more effective. She later returned to Ft. McClellan, to command a basic training battalion, before going onto commanding a CID brigade level command in Atlanta that led to her selection to brigadier general.

Cadoria, who retired from the Army in 1990, (the same year I decided to leave as well,) and I remained in contact over the next four years after I left Ft. McClellan for command in Hawaii. In a personally inscribed note to me on her official photo (above), after her 1986 visit to Anniston, she wrote “always remember our soldiers…god bless you.”

The Freedom Riders destroyed the yoke of Jim Crow in Anniston and beyond, and Sherian Cadoria, a tenant farmer’s daughter, would become a major symbol for the Army as it strove to confront racism in Anniston, through her presence at Ft. McClellan. I say god bless you General Cadoria and other brave souls like you, who followed the Freedom Riders by doing the difficult work of advancing racial justice.

The journey goes on, the work continues.

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

Read Tanya Domi’s most-recent previous article at The New Civil Rights Movement, “Facing the 21st Century: A Brave New World of Challenge, Change and Caution.”

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News

Trump Expected to Grant Clemency to Almost All J6 Criminals, Including Violent Felons

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12 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump is expected to grant “sweeping” pardons and sentence commutations to all or nearly all the approximately 1600 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and assault on the U.S. Capitol — including those convicted of some of the most violent acts against law enforcement. Trump, who was also charged with crimes related to the insurrection and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has called those serving prison time “hostages” and “political prisoners.”

Those convicted of violent crimes are expected to receive sentence commutations, which could mean lesser sentences or even release from prison.

ABC News’ Katherine Faulders also reports the actions would include “commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.”

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Rather than look at each person on a case-by-case basis, Trump, according to The Washington Post, “would grant some form of clemency to virtually everyone prosecuted by the Justice Department, from the plotters imprisoned for seditious conspiracy and felons convicted of assaulting police officers to those who merely trespassed on the restricted grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.”

The U.S. Department of Justice “would also dismiss about 300 cases that have not yet gone to trial, including people charged with violent assaults, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss pending plans,” the Post added.

After the 2024 election, Trump had told TIME magazine, “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished.”

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He also told NBC News’ Kristen Welker, and supporters at his rallies, he would act “on day one.”

According to the Post, 14 of the January 6 defendants have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. At least 379 were charged with assaulting police or the media — the vast majority of them have also been sentenced. 287 were charged with “less violent or nonviolent felonies.” Most of them have already been convicted. And 869 were charged with “misdemeanor counts such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.” The vast majority of them have also been sentenced.

Contrary to claims by many of Trump’s supporters, including lawmakers and those in the media, the January 6 attack was not “peaceful,” or nonviolent, and weapons were used in the attack.

“Participants carried weapons including firearms, chemical sprays, stun guns, axes, baseball bats, a sword and a hockey stick. A female rioter was shot and killed by police inside the Capitol, and one officer succumbed to two strokes that were partly attributed to the stress of the attack. Three people died as a result of medical emergencies suffered during the riot. Four police officers later died by suicide,” the Post reports.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

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15 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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During his presidential swearing-in inaugural ceremony, Donald Trump several times invoked God, while inexplicably not placing his hand on either of the two Bibles Melania Trump held at his side.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump told the former presidents, lawmakers, and billionaires in attendance at the Capitol Rotunda. “We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God,” Trump also declared, adding, “We will not forget our God.”

Many, including the Deputy Chief of Staff to a Democratic U.S. Congressman, noted that Trump did not place his hand on the Bible. And while not a constitutional requirement, it was a striking anomaly.

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Also reporting Trump not being sworn in with a hand on the Bible, The New York Post noted, “Trump used both a family Bible and the so-called Lincoln Bible, which was sworn on by the 16th president in 1861 as well as Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013.”

“Instead,”the Post reported, “Trump stood with his left arm down by his side as he raised his right hand for the oath of office.”

Few presidents have skipped the hand-on-the-Bible portion of the swearing in.

President John Quincy Adams in 1825 reportedly used a law book instead of a Bible, according to PBS.

“In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was hastily sworn in after the assassination of President Wil­liam McKinley,” notes Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Roosevelt had rushed to Buffalo, where McKinley had been shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt took the Oath of Office at the home of a friend, and no Bible was used during the private ceremony.”

In 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, “believed it was best for a reeling nation to know that a president was in place immediately. As Johnson was preparing to take the oath of office aboard Air Force One, a Bible was not available. Kennedy’s personal Roman Catholic missal was found in his living quarters,” according to The Washington Post.

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But this may be the first time a president has been sworn in with a Bible by his side yet without putting their hand on it.

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Image via Reuters

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Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

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17 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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Almost immediately after being sworn in as America’s 47th president, Donald Trump reportedly will sign 200 executive orders across a wide range of issues, despite, as critics note, having Republican majorities in the House and Senate, which could allow him to achieve many of his goals through legislation. Among those orders is one that would, in theory, end birthright citizenship — the constitutional right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil — for children born to undocumented parents.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1898 dealt with birthright citizenship, a guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which clearly states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The portion that reads, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the Supreme Court ruled, meant children born in the U.S. to a parent or parents of diplomats of a foreign country.

Candidate Trump in 2015 said he wanted to end birthright citizenship.

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“In August 2015, Donald Trump sat down to talk with then–Fox News host Bill O’Reilly about one of his central campaign promises: the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants. ‘Our country is going to hell,’ Trump said. ‘We have to start a process where we take back our country,'” Mother Jones reported last year.

“O’Reilly found the plan ridiculous. Such a colossal and expensive undertaking, the conservative host said, would take decades. Before then, the courts would stop sweeping raids. The idea, O’Reilly continued, was just ‘not going to happen.’ Perhaps the most obvious reason why, he said, was the 14th Amendment, which ‘says if you’re born here, you’re an American—and you can’t kick Americans out.’ O’Reilly almost screamed at one point: ‘If you’re born here, you’re an American—period! Period!'”

In 2018 he again said he would do so, with an executive order, that never materialized.

Now, it appears Trump will try to fulfill his decade-long wish.

“This executive order will ‘clarify’ the 14th Amendment, [an] incoming official said, such that ‘that on a prospective basis, the federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,'” Semafor White House correspondent Shelby Talcott said.

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“The incoming official,” The Washington Post adds, “did not provide details on how the administration planned to implement a change that scholars say would be illegal. Trump’s order would reinterpret the words ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all people born on U.S. soil, and redefine the phrase to exclude babies born to parents illegally in the country.”

There are millions of Americans of all ages currently living in the U.S., (an estimated 5 million under the age of 18) who are children of undocumented parents. The claim, “on a prospective basis,” suggests Trump will try to deny any child born of undocumented parents, going forward, their right to citizenship.

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis declared, “Birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment and the president cannot write it out with his pen.”

Professor of Law Steve Vladeck noted, “Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship by executive order is (1) unlawful; (2) predicated on conflating two entirely distinct legal arguments; and (3) doomed to fail in (even these) courts.”

Mother Jones’ Isabela Dias last year wrote if it were to happen, “It would be nothing short of seismic.”

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